1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to optical systems of the inner focus type suited to cameras for film, video cameras, video still cameras or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
It has been known to provide a lens type suited to the optical systems of long focal lengths, comprising, in order from an object side, a first lens unit of positive refractive power and a second lens unit of negative refractive power, or the so-called "telephoto" type. This lens type is advantageous at removing, in particular, spherical aberration and securing a fast F-number.
In, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications No. Hei 5-27163, No. Hei 5-27164, No. Hei 6-242371, No. Hei 9-159911 and No. Hei 9-203859, the use of the telephoto type in optical systems has been proposed.
For many photographic lenses (optical systems,) focusing is performed by moving either the entirety of the complete lens, or one of the constituent lenses. In the case of long-focal-length lenses or telephoto lenses, because of their having bodies of large size and heavy weight, the former focusing method is hardly employed owing to the difficult problem of making up the operating mechanism.
For this reason, most of the telephoto lenses have the focusing provision made in one of the lens units. Of the lens units other than the front lens unit, a one in the central section is favorable for focusing purposes, because its size is relatively small and, moreover, because it is far light in weight. The use of this inner focus type has been proposed for various lenses.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Sho 55-147606 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,084) discloses a telephoto lens of the inner focus type having a focal length of 300 mm with an F-number of 2.8, and each of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications No. Sho 59-65820 and No. Sho 59-65821 discloses another telephoto lens of the inner focus type having a focal length of 135 mm with an F-number of 2.8.
The telephoto lenses of the inner focus type proposed in the above applications each comprise, in order from an object side, a first lens unit of positive refractive power, a second lens unit of negative refractive power and a third lens unit of positive refractive power, totaling three lens units, wherein the second lens unit is made axially movable for focusing.
Meanwhile, in shooting with the long-focal-length photographic system (optical system), it is generally difficult to suppress the influence of the vibrations of the photographic system. When the photographic system tilts due to the vibrations, the image on the focal plane changes its position out of alignment with a sight line, depending on the tilt angle and the focal length of the photographic system. Therefore, the photographic apparatus for taking still pictures suffers a problem of preventing the image quality from deteriorating by decreasing the exposure time to much short values. The motion-picture taking apparatus, too, encounters a difficult problem of keeping the composition at a desired setting. In such photographic situations, therefore, it becomes necessary to compensate for the tilting of the photographic system due to the vibrations so that the image on the focal plane remains stationary in alignment with the line of sight, that is, the so-called "shake" of the image does not occur.
There have been many methods of compensating for the shake of the image on the focal plane. For example, in the video cameras, the image pickup element is given a larger effective area than the necessary image frame and the image shake is electrically compensated for. Such an electric compensation method is widely employed in the video cameras.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Sho 61-223819, there is disclosed a photographic system in which a refractive-type variable angle prism is disposed at the frontmost position thereof. When the photographic system vibrates, the vertical angle of the variable angle prism is changed correspondingly with the vibration of the photographic system, so that an image is deflected so as to stabilize the image.
Another method of compensating for the shake of the image by moving a certain lens unit (movable lens unit) of an optical system in directions perpendicular to the optical axis was proposed in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications No. Sho 50-80147, No. Sho 61-223819, No. Hei 7-270724 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,646,779) and No. Hei 8-201691.
With such an optical system, if the relative aperture is increased (or if the F-number is made faster), the front lens unit becomes larger accordingly. As is well known, the F-number of the optical system is defined by EQU Fno=f/D
where Fno: the F-number,
f: the focal length of the optical system, and PA1 D: the diameter of an effective light beam coming from an object point at infinity on the optical axis.
Accordingly, the large-relative-aperture telephoto lens (whose focal length is long) gets a large diameter for the equivalent F-number in direct proportion to the focal length. As the diameter of the front lens unit increases, the weight of the optical system increases rapidly. So, this tendency has been seen as problematic. Particularly for the photographic camera using 35 mm film, in the case of exceeding f=400 mm (semi-angle of field .omega.=3.1.degree.), or in the case of the so-called "super" telephoto lens, this problem is very serious. In the locations where the tripod cannot be used, the hand-held shooting gives the photographer a heavy burden, becoming a cause of the image shake and an obstacle to the long-time shooting.
The method of compensating for the shake of the image by decentering a certain movable lens unit of the optical system so as to displace the image position is amenable to the techniques of minimizing the size of the apparatus by selecting a suitable one of the lens units for the movable lens unit.
However, the use of this method leads to taking into account two prerequisites, one of which is to properly select or arrange a lens unit of small size and light weight so that a lesser decentering movement produces a greater effect of displacing the image position, and the other of which is to prevent the image quality from deteriorating as far as possible, as that lens unit, when being decentered, produces aberrations. In general, it is very difficult to balance these conditions.
Meanwhile, the inner focus type, because of its using a lens unit of small size and light weight as the focusing lens, has merits that the management is easy, that a fast speed operation becomes possible, and that the holding is easy to keep, because the center of gravity of the whole lens system little changes between when focused on an infinitely distant object and when focused on an object at the minimum distance.
On the other hand, the use of the inner focus type in the telephoto lens of fast F-number increases the range of variation of aberrations with focusing. This variation of aberrations, because of being difficult to correct well, comes to a cause of lowering the optical performance.